The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
by Miss Puppylove
Summary: *Complete* In which Sirius hears of a plot, loses his temper, acquires a motorcycle, and runs away from home. Featuring the lovely Black family, a snarky portrait, Unforgivable Curses, an understanding James, and lots of Remus. (Dark, slashy.)
1. House, Not Home

Notes: Spoilers for OotP be within. If you're okay with that, proceed. This fic is written in answer to the question, what happened to make Sirius run away from home at sixteen? Of course, this is the fanfic interpretation of it – Sirius probably ran away because Regulus broke his favorite Filibuster Firework or something. ;) Anyway, not so in this fic. Please mind the rating; it's there because Sirius is a teenager having an absolutely rotten summer. This includes some torture and some snogging, but nothing you can't find in a Harry Potter book (though of course those being tortured and snogged do differ).

Disclaimer: all herein belongs to JK Rowling. I am making no money; I am only having fun.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

Chapter One

_House, Not Home_

I've got a mental list of things I really, really hate doing. Some of the top things on this list include touching Bobotuber Pus for prolonged amounts of time, touching Snivellus for _any_ amount of time, and going home for the summer. I really think going home for the summer tops the list. 'Going home' isn't really even an appropriate term for it, because it's _never_ felt like home, not even when I was a little kid. It's always felt exactly like what it really is, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black; a house, not a home.

It's not really the house's fault. It's the people who live in the house. The people I've had the highest misfortune of being born to.

In order to get a really good idea of how awful they are, it's best to go back to my first year, at the Sorting Ceremony. I can remember perfectly slipping the hat onto my head, and a little voice next to my ear, murmuring, "Oh _dear_, a Black. I can hardly believe that; if you're Slytherin material, I'll eat myself. You're a courageous one, you are, and …" But it trailed off. Maybe there's things even hats need to keep to themselves. And then, without further warning, it screamed "GRYFFINDOR!" and something weird happened in my chest, like a giant cork popping, and I had felt a fierce rush of something exhilarating and terrifying – defiance. I'd never liked my family, really, and the whole lot were Slytherins. Now I was doing something different, and my family would be furious with me, and I _didn't care_. 

But the Blacks did.

My mother screamed abuse, and my father was colder than ever and gave me stinging slaps, and my brother Regulus remained quiet and very, very, maddeningly smug. They're a horrible lot. I really think it's because of this that, every time my family showed their disapproval, my defiance grew, until I – I somehow _needed_ to keep it up, so wonderful to be different from them that it was almost like a high, and so I wanted to be as different from them as possible.

James, Remus, and Peter are the ones who made that difference possible. My absolutely batty friends, who can turn into stags and wolves and rats, who don't mind having to share a room with a silly kid who can turn himself into a slobbering puppy, who don't care that I'm twice as crazy as the rest of them. I love that about them, that they can stand every mad thing I do, so of course I participate in every harebrained scheme James concocts, help Peter with homework even when I'm entirely sure Peter can easily do it himself, spend hours playing chess or discussing books with Remus.

This past year, my sixth at Hogwarts, that wonderful dizzying defiance exploded into something far, far out of my control, got Snape almost killed and all my friends in very serious trouble – but I can't let that matter, because I _need _to thrill in what's forbidden by my family.

And my damn family was what I had to look forward to, as the school year ended and we all prepared to take our leave from Hogwarts; packing our trunks and stuffing our various owls and cats into cages; looking for an extra quill or the sock that we'd been missing all year but had never been bothered to find.

So it was with a knot of dread in my stomach that I took a seat in one of the horseless carriages that would take us from the Hogwarts entrance hall to Hogsmeade Station. Of course, I reminded myself in an attempt at distraction, the carriages weren't _really_ horseless, or at least Remus claimed that; he said they were really drawn by thestrals, and that none of us but him could see them, because he alone had seen death. I'm still not sure if Remus was joking or not.

"Sirius?"

And here was Remus now, and Peter next to him, both looking at me from the opposite seat inside our carriage. They both looked faintly concerned.

"Yeah?"

"Are you all right?" James tried from his spot next to me.

I turned to the window without answering. There wasn't any point, really; they'd know that I was lying if I said yes. We've pieced together each other's family histories, from bits dropped in casual conversation over the years, and so they all knew what a horrible lot of people I thought the Blacks were.

None of us spoke until we got on the train, and even then it was only James, who said "here" as he helped Peter with his luggage. Silence reigned again in our compartment, as around us on the train people ran and laughed and shouted, all of it sounding strangely muffled. I stared mutely out my window as the Hogwarts Express gave warning blasts from its whistle and then chugged to life, lumbering out of Hogsmeade and gaining speed, rushing through the Scottish mountain land that surrounded our castle school.

After a while I got sick of looking out at the dark greens and purples of forests and moors, and very, very tired of looking at my reflection in the windowpane, because my reflection looked almost disgustingly mopey. Instead I looked back around our compartment. Peter was sitting on the floor, shuffling his Exploding Snap deck repeatedly and shooting me furtive glances. James sat in the seat across from me, idly twirling his wand and doing his best to look as though he were observing not me but the scenery outside. Only Remus, in the corner nearest the compartment door, curled up and reading a book, looked as though he was honestly absorbed by what he was doing. I knew better anyway.

For some reason, I suddenly desperately wanted to hug them tightly and yell at them to leave in the same breath. I suppose that's friendship.

Instead I got down onto the floor with Peter, and had him deal out the deck, so that we were soon all playing Exploding Snap. The deck exploded in Remus's face, we all laughed like maniacs, and then everything was fine again, and none of my friends were looking worriedly at me. 

James swept up the softly smoldering cards and began carefully stacking them atop each other, humming to himself.

"You're wasting your time," Remus commented, scrubbing soot from his face with the sleeve of his robe. "I only find comfort in the fact that very soon you'll be looking much the same way I do now."

Grinning, gently propping two cards together, James replied, "And I'll look absolutely lovely, too. Anyway, Moony, what are you doing this summer?"

Remus shrugged, taking a battered textbook from his trunk. "Not much. Helping Mum around the house, mostly. She's insistent on having me learn to drive, so if I ever take on a Muggle job I'll be able to get places." He grinned faintly. "Maybe if I insist I want to learn to drive a motorcycle she'll stop going on at me."

"A motorcycle?" James said, dropping a card in shock. The whole deck exploded in his face, and Peter smothered a giggle.

"I don't _really_ want one," Remus said hastily.

"_I_ do," I put in. "Do I ever. What I could _do_ with a motorcycle …" I trailed off. I had a broom, but it had a Tracking Charm on it, expertly set in by my father, and try as I might I couldn't get it off. A motorcycle wouldn't have a tracking charm. I wouldn't even have to fly; I could drive it along the ground and still look fairly inconspicuous. But that didn't mean I _wouldn't_ have it fly …

"Earth to Padfoot," Peter piped up, right by my ear. I jumped, and Peter stifled a smile. "What were you thinking about?" he asked.

"Motorcycles," I replied with a grin.

"I've created a monster," Remus commented. The Snap deck blew up again. James yelled indignantly and began threatening the deck; Peter shrieked and hid, not altogether in jest, behind my trunk; Remus, muttering what sounded suspiciously like swearwords under his breath, dusted ash off his battered book; and I just grinned around at them all.

This is how we always are. It's funny, really, how I ended up with Remus and Peter and James as best friends. 

James has a lot of Muggle ancestry, but both of his parents are wizards, and had gone to school with my parents, so the name Black shouldn't have been especially pleasant to him. But when the Sorting Hat placed James in Gryffindor and he came over to the table I had joined moments before, he sat down next to me and whispered, "Absolutely excellent. A Gryffindor Black, eh? That'll give everyone a turn." Then he'd grinned at me, a delighted wicked grin, and I knew I'd somehow found the other half of my brain, a soul sibling as mad as I was.

Peter, on the other hand, lives with his Muggle mother, and he never heard of the Blacks. He was simply in the dorm with us, watching me and James fool around with Filibuster's Fireworks, and when we got one of the fireworks to go off, Peter laughed and clapped and cheered and asked us to do it again. So it was really only natural that Peter should be our friend too, encouraging us along, and in return we usually help him with homework or give him advice on how to stop Snivellus from teasing him.

I guess Remus is the real mystery; I mean, it's really a mystery why we're friends with him. There was the other mystery, of course, that we worked out in second year, about Remus being a werewolf. I think that's really what cinched our friendship, that when we found out about his lycanthropy we didn't reject him. But why we liked him well enough in the first place, I really don't know. He helped Peter with homework, so of course Peter was well disposed towards him. But whenever James and I did some dumb thing that could get us in trouble, with Peter cheering us on, Remus would stay sitting where he was, studiously reading some book or other, with a faint frown line on his forehead. He's loosened up a bit, of course, as long as whatever we're planning doesn't get us into serious trouble. 

But first year … why we liked Remus. I don't know. At least for me, I think it's because he's not like me at all, the way James is, or really encouraging of the things about me that scare even me a little, like Peter, but because Remus is really different, and its refreshing. A little exhilarating, too. Like there's some part of me that's there when I'm around Remus that doesn't turn up when I'm around James or Peter, and it makes me get very strange ideas. It also makes me do stupid things, like telling Snape how to get into the Whomping Willow; defiance on my family, sure, but also because I was being overprotective of Remus, didn't want Snivellus prying into his business; or maybe it was because, doing something that stupid, I wasn't only showing myself and my family, I was trying to show off for Remus. Not that it wasn't an absolutely idiotic way to show off, and certainly didn't impress Remus, but afterwards when I apologized for almost getting Remus in terrible trouble, and Remus gave me a tired grin and murmured that it was all right, it suddenly seemed a thousand times worth it, that I'd done something so stupid. As though I'd only done it to get Remus to smile at me like that. Almost like … I don't know. I can never quite put my finger on it.

Whatever it is, all four of us have had the great good fortune to get along really smashingly. And here we were, in our own compartment on the train, playing Snap and joking around. It's times like this, doing stupid fun things with my very best friends, when I get the chance to really love my life.

So by the time we got to Kings Cross Station, as Peter and Remus unloaded our luggage, and James drew me aside, looking solemn, I didn't really mind too much. "Look," James whispered, "this summer … if you need to, come to my place."

I snorted. "Would I ever like to."

"Then come," James said, quietly and urgently. "If your family's so horrible, tell them you're going to spend the summer with your friends for once."

"It isn't that simple," I told him.

James shrugged. "Then make it that simple." He grabbed my shoulder as I started to turn away. "I mean it, Sirius. If you need, you can always come to my house."

"Yeah." I gave him a half-hearted smile. "I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, Prongs."

He sighed. "Anytime."

Okay, so maybe it wasn't with the lightest of hearts that I got off the train, smiling goodbye to James, ruffling Peter's hair, momentarily clasping Remus's hand, and turning away from them, dragging my luggage behind me, looking around the platform without really wanting to find her –

I spotted my mother.

She was looking as odd as usual – her black hair was falling out of its bun, and her clothes were draped around her in a really hideous way that reminds me of some illustrations of witches I saw in _Macbeth,_ a book belonging to Remus. But it's her face that does it, thin, with wide wild eyes, and a bit of spittle at the corner of her mouth, as though there to remind her she was going to be screaming again soon.

Spotting me, she sort of swooped over and grabbed my wrist in an iron grip. I bit my lip against the pressure, and tasted blood.

"Hello, Mother."

"Come," she snapped, and tapped my luggage sharply with her wand. This is something she does every year, perhaps to ensure I'll really come with her, by turning my luggage into a Portkey that will take us back to Grimmauld Place. With my wrist still in her grip, she reached down and slammed both our hands against the trunk. As my stomach jolted and I felt the Portkey beginning to pull me inexorably forward, I glanced one last time across the platform and met Remus's eyes, filled with something suspiciously like compassion, before the scene dissolved into a rushing blur.

We jolted to a stop in the front hallway, and my legs collapsed. Furious with myself, I started to scramble to my feet. Before I could raise myself off the floor, I was knocked back to the ground, my head ringing. Stunned, I blinked up at my mother.

"You," she whispered in the terrible voice she uses just before she goes off into a rage. "I saw you. At the platform. You were with … _some of them_."

"What?" I said as evenly and insolently as I could. "You mean other students?"

"No," she said, voice trembling with suppressed rage.

_Come on,_ I suddenly thought. _Come on. Break. Scream at me. Do it._

"You," my mother hissed again, "are a _disgrace_! The company you keep –" and she was screaming now, spit flying from her mouth as she towered over me – "Mudbloods – Muggle-lovers – abominations of wizard-kind – filthy half-breeds, dirty little fools, disgusting mindless creatures of shadow and moonlight –"

"_What_?" I gasped before recalling myself.

She stopped, and stared terrifyingly down at me. And then she smiled, a slow, cold, cruel smile. "A Mudblood, a half-breed, and a werewolf, Sirius," she said, soft, deadly. "_That_ is the company you keep."

My stomach had turned to ice. She knew. She _knew_ about Remus.

Not that I was about to show her I was terrified half-senseless.

"Yeah," I said, willing my voice not to tremble. "That's exactly the company I keep. And they're far cleaner than the lot _you_ –" I ended in a choked cry as my mother slapped me.

"One of these days," she whispered venomously, "you'll be going exactly the same way as your fool cousin Andromeda."

"Andromeda?" I repeated stupidly, feeling suddenly numb. Andromeda was my favorite cousin, especially when compared with her sisters. Bellatrix was in her twenties and recently married to an utterly disgusting man by the name of Rodolphus Lestrange; Narcissa was in my year at school, and I'd heard her boasting to her friends that it was likely she'd soon be engaged to Lucius Malfoy, a Slytherin boy who had graduated three years before. 

My aunt and uncle had tried very hard to make their children good upstanding Blacks; in other words, horrid gits. They managed rather too well with Bellatrix … I remember being six years old, zooming around the downstairs hall on my broomstick … It annoyed dear Bella, and she burned my broom to ashes before I could get off, so I came out of that episode bruised and singed. Andromeda was my aunt and uncle's next child, and it seems they expected for Bella's influence to rub off on Andromeda, but she was Sorted into Ravenclaw, made the Quidditch team, won Ravenclaw's cup for three years running, and whispered to me, just before she left Hogwarts, that she had more than half a mind to elope with Theodore Tonks, a Muggle-born Ravenclaw in her year. So my aunt and uncle's third child, their dear Narcissa, was put under constant influence by Bellatrix and pampered by her parents; she's turned out all right, I suppose, just your typical self-centered Slytherin girl.

But something had happened to Andromeda?

"Yes," my mother snapped. "She's a blood traitor, Sirius, an abomination to our ancient house. Here." She reached down and jerked me off the floor, further bruising my wrist. "Let me show you what happens to blood traitors."

"Sure, Mum," I whispered caustically. My mother clenched her hand tighter around my wrist, and I bit through my lip again.

I was dragged down the hall and into the drawing room, a really awful gloomy room covered with giant tapestries. My heart sank as my mother led me the length of the room, towards one immense tapestry covering most of a wall; a very old tapestry, faded, but with brightly glinting gold thread … my mother insisted the house-elves always clean this particular tapestry, so that the writing would always shine out – The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Toujours Pur. I don't know one bit of French, bar that one phrase, the Black family motto – always pure, always pure. Pure my little Padfoot tail.

We were in front of the tapestry. My mother pushed me to my knees, so that I was level with the middle-bottom of the family tree, and right in front of my eyes I could see my parents' names, with vertical gold lines leading down from them to my name and Regulus's. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I glanced to the right, along the golden threat connecting my mother's name with my uncle's, and down another vertical thread, where the names Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa were embroidered.

"Er …" I said, and glanced up at my mother. Immediately I wished I had not. She had an awful gleam in her eye as she stared at my favorite cousin's name. In the back of my mind I recalled a hot summer day three years previous, sitting on my bed with Andromeda sprawled out on the floor, staring boredly up at my ceiling. _My mother's mad,_ I remembered telling her flatly, by way of conversation to pass our bored hours together. _Yes,_ she had replied dreamily. _Terribly mad. Comes from all that pureblood mania. Too much interbreeding, Siri. It's bound to happen. _She had noticed my alarmed look and grinned. _Don't worry, it only happens every few generations. You should be perfectly safe_. Safe from myself, I supposed. But never safe from my mother.

My mother was still eyeing Andromeda's name with a predatory gaze that reminded me uncomfortably of Moony, in those first minutes when he still didn't remember myself and Wormtail and Prongs to be his friends. 

"Do you know," my mother said now, "what Andromeda has done?"

"Graduated Hogwarts, I expect," I said. "Gotten a job."

My mother turned her mad eyes on me. "_Gotten a job_?" she repeated, and then she laughed, a long laugh with no mirth that made the back of my neck prickle. "You stupid boy, she got herself married."

My stomach sank further. She'd gotten married.

"To whom?"

"A filthy Mudblood," my mother spat.

She'd married Ted Tonks. She'd actually gone ahead and done it. "Good for her," I said loudly before I could think better of it.

My mother was still smiling. "Blood traitors," she informed me, "are no longer fit for the name of Black." She pulled her wand from her robes almost casually, pointed it at the flowing golden letters on the tapestry, and muttered, "_Incendio_."

A jet of light – a rushing sound – a faint crackle and the smell of burning cloth – there was suddenly nothing but a small round charred hole where Andromeda's name had been.

I blinked at my mother. "What did you do?"

She gave me another one of those skin-crawling smiles. "Improved upon the tapestry, dear." She leaned closer, and clenched my wrist again in a vice-like grip. "Remember that. Never become a disgrace to the name of Black." She straightened, pulling me to my feet. "Come on now. Let's tell your father you're home."

"Right," I muttered through clenched teeth.

My mother swept through the hallway with me in tow, and dragged me up the stairs, past the shriveled heads of failed house-elves, past the door to my own room, past the door to Regulus', and on to the end of the upstairs landing, and my father's study. My mother knocked sharply on the oak door, tightening her grip on my wrist further.

Bruised wrist, stinging cheek, bitten-through lip, choking fury – oh yes, I had definitely returned to the House of Black.


	2. White Sheep of the Family

Notes: I don't have much to say regarding this chapter; if Sirius's father bears a striking resemblance to fanon!Lucius, it isn't my fault. Okay, it is. Feel free to yell at me about this.

Disclaimer: all herein belongs to JK Rowling. I am making no money; I am only having fun.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

Chapter Two

_White Sheep of the Family_

Before my father could acknowledge my mother's knock, she flung the door open, pushed me inside, and slammed the door behind me, leaving me to stand in the doorway, doing my best to look composed for my father.

The nice thing about my father – really, the _only_ nice thing about my father – is that it's possible to have a logical conversation with him. After spending extended amounts of time with my mother, it's almost a relief, even though my father always manages to twist logic into something horrible. 

His study is a bit like horrible logic, really. It's all paneled in oak, so it looks dark even with the summer sun streaming through the blood-red velvet curtains in the floor-to-ceiling windows, as it was doing now. All along two sides of the room are shelves of books, great fat heavy books with faded peeling covers, books that rustle and whisper to each other like the books in the Hogwarts Library Restricted Section. At the far end of the room, down from a threadbare, once-magnificent runner carpet, is my father's large oak desk, situated between the two largest windows. My father likes to sit at that desk, as he was doing now, and stare deeply at whoever has just entered the room. He thinks doing that makes him look imposing.

I'll never give him the satisfaction of knowing, but it _does_ make him look imposing.

"Sirius," he said in a cool, composed voice. I hate his voice. It sounds exactly like mine when I'm really angry and trying my hardest to keep from shouting. "Do come in." Of course, since I was already in the room, _come in_ really meant _come to my desk_.

I walked slowly across his study, past the horrid books whispering on their shelves, down the runner carpet, a million miles from the door to his desk. When I reached my father, I simply stood there and stared out one of the windows beside his desk, gazing intently out at the boring rooftops of London. I could sense my father looking me over, taking in the blood on my lip, the bruise on my wrist, the red mark across my face.

"Oh dear," he said, sounding almost amused, "what _have_ you done to get your mother upset so very quickly?"

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I looked at him. I hate my father's looks even more than I hate his voice, because he looks almost exactly how I expect I'll look at forty. We look painfully alike as it is, except that he wears his hair neat and short; I cut my hair for the O.W.L.s, so I could make a good impression, but I'm growing it out again, as much to look different from my father as for anything else.

"I haven't done anything," I told him. "I met her at the station, right after saying goodbye to my friends. She just … doesn't have the same taste I do."

My father's face quirked up into a smile, one of those very charismatic smiles that's immediately likeable and very untrustworthy. I try not to smile like that. "I see," my father murmured. "The company you keep, Sirius … Who is that friend of yours again? Potter?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"Potter, Potter," my father repeated, saying the name almost like it was a rather intriguing species of insect. "He would be a half-blood, wouldn't he?"

"Both his parents are wizards," I said, hesitated a moment, and added, "not that it makes a difference."

My father chuckled, humoring me. "Ah yes, of course. And your other friends? What are their names?"

I really didn't want to tell him, and opened my mouth to tell him so, before seeing my father's wand lying inches from his fingertips, before seeing the coldly polite way he was looking at me. Mouth suddenly dry, I said, "Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin, Father."

He smiled his brilliant smile again. "Pettigrew. A … er, Muggle-born."

"I think so," I said, fidgeting. I hated interrogations, and I hated standing still for so long. "His mum's a Muggle, at least. His dad's dead – Peter doesn't talk about him much."

"Ah. And the other? Lupin?" my father said softly, scrutinizing me. He tilted his head thoughtfully sideways. "Your mother claims the boy is a werewolf. Is that true?"

I glanced down at my father's wand again. It was still easily within his grasp. Slowly, forcing the word out, I said, "Yes."

"Hmm." My father smiled. "Easily the best of your friends, I'm sure, for all his corruption." He steepled his fingers together, wand still within reach. "But all of them Gryffindors. Tell me, Sirius, do you make many points for Gryffindor?"

"Only the average," I said truthfully. Whatever extra I gained for knowing all the right answers in class, I lost in detention for myself and James' foolery.

"At least you are not the _model_ Gryffindor, then," my father said, still smiling, though he said the word 'model' like my mother said 'scum'. "Still, Sirius, I do confess some disappointment, especially after what Regulus has done recently." He paused, obviously waiting for me to ask what wonderful thing my fifteen-year-old brother had done this time. When I remained stubbornly silent, my father continued, "I'm sure you've heard of the phrase _black sheep of the family_? This metaphor seems to apply well to you, Sirius, though in your case –" he laughed, a deep laugh that just bordered on sinister " – we must call you the _white_ sheep of the Black family, mustn't we?"

"Don't really have to call me _anything_," I muttered.

My father gently drummed the fingers of his wand hand against the desk. "No, I suppose not. After all, you pale into something insignificant next to our dear Regulus." He leaned back in his chair, scrutinizing me. "Have you, perchance, heard of the rise of our Lord?"

"What lord?"

Smiling twistedly, my father answered, "A very powerful man who is styling himself as the Dark Lord. Only as a formality, mark you, only as a title. His real purpose, you see, is to cleanse the wizarding world."

My stomach seemed to be dropping. Of course, over the past few years there'd been rumors enough of someone calling himself the Dark Lord, and though it had ceased being the topic of uneasy jokes and was now only discussed in hushed and fearful conversations, it had never been really _real_ for me. Hearing the words on my father's lips suddenly solidified it. "_Cleanse_?" I croaked.

"Indeed yes," my father said. "He means to make a pure-blooded society, as his great ancestor Salazar Slytherin once purposed. Muggle-borns have no place in our world, nor do those with tainted blood. Those who have an unnatural love of Muggles will be taught the error in their ways." He was smiling still, less condescending now, more eager as he explained this brilliant future to me.

I felt sick.

"So … Peter's Muggle-born. What happens to him?"

"Cast from our society."

"James?"

"The same."

Nausea was growing in the back of my throat. "What about Remus?"

My father shrugged. "As a werewolf, he too is tainted. I am sure our Lord shall find … uses for him."

I stumbled back from his desk. "I –" I whispered. "I – I've got to –" I desperately needed to get away from this man, who I knew with sudden certainty was quite as mad as my mother.

For a moment my father simply stared at me. Then he added, "Our Lord has a group of loyal, trusted followers, who he calls his Death Eaters. Regulus has recently joined their ranks." He smiled in satisfaction at the arrested look on my face, then concluded, "You are dismissed."

I fled.

Once in the relative safety of my own room, I simply sat curled up on the bed, staring around. This bedroom wasn't really mine, because I was only in it for two months out of the year; it contained only a bed, a desk, my trunk, and a picture frame on the wall, blank and white.

What was I supposed to do?

I'd always known my family weren't the nicest people. I knew they had Dark stuff around the house, and they liked to hit me, sure; but supporting a bloody _holocaust_?

Someone coughed behind me. I turned and met the sarcastic gaze of the man who sometimes visited my room's blank picture frame. Phineas Nigellus, my great-great-grandfather, an old Hogwarts headmaster, and a bloody sarcastic portrait.

"Hello, Phineas," I said dully.

He frowned at me. "Sulking," he informed me, "is very unbecoming. I don't care if you think the world doesn't understand you, stop it this minute."

I gave a barking laugh. "I think it's that I don't understand the world, really."

Phineas shrugged. "And you're telling me this is new?"

Rolled my eyes, I said impatiently, "Look, if Regulus joined a madman bent on killing everyone he didn't think was good enough, and the rest of my family thinks it's a smashing idea, then do I have the right of it, or do they?"

Phineas looked startled. "Well, they do say, the longer you exist, the stupider everyone else seems. It appears that my illustrious family has just taken a turn for the more intriguing and less intelligent." He stopped and glared at me. "Not that I'm implying this makes you the slightest bit more useful, you know."

Feeling slightly better, I assured him I indeed knew, and went back to ignoring him. Maybe … there was no reasoning with my mother, and my father was too dangerous, but if I could get Regulus to see sense …

Decided, I sprang up from my bed and left the room, ignoring Phineas' yells behind me for an explanation of exactly where I thought I was going. I walked across the landing and knocked on my brother's door. "Regulus? It's me."

My brother opened the door and blinked at me in surprise. I was a bit startled too; I hadn't seen Regulus since he was thirteen. After I was Sorted into Gryffindor, my parents thought it would be best for my little brother to go to Durmstrang; I only saw him for segments of two months at a time, though the past summer he had been staying with some of his Durmstrang friends. Last time I saw him, he'd been short and skinny and thirteen. He was taller now, his hair less scraggly, his frame less thin, but otherwise looking much the same. Regulus looks a lot like my mother, really, with the same slightly pinched look and wide eyes, though Regulus appears to be a lot more mentally balanced.

"Sirius?" he said in surprise. "You're home?"

"Until next term," I replied. "Look, can I come in?"

Regulus shrugged and opened the door wider. I came into his room, wandering across the faded carpet to gaze out the window at more London rooftops. Turning back to my brother, preparing to speak, my eyes fell on black robes draped over the end of his bed. Lying on top of the robes was a strange blank mask.

"What's that?"

Regulus drew himself up proudly. "The robes of a Death Eater, our Lord's loyal followers, and these very robes are mine."

I looked at him. His eyes were shining with the same proud light I had seen in my father's, and his face was bright with the same conviction. "So," I said cuttingly, "will you be doing good and noble work from behind a _mask_, then?"

Nostrils turning white, as they always did when he was annoyed, Regulus snapped, "This is top-secret stuff, Sirius. Don't question our Lord."

Carefully not touching those disgusting black robes, I flopped down on my brother's bed. "Right, no questioning the great and almighty Dark lord. Got it." I pulled my knees up to my chin and regarded Regulus, who was looking highly affronted and clutching his wand, not very threateningly, with white-knuckled hands. "So, Regulus, ever heard of Hitler?"

"Who?" Regulus said.

"I guess you wouldn't," I said with superiority. "After all, Muggle history couldn't _possibly_ affect us, _could_ it?"

"Cut the sarcasm," Regulus growled, "and get to the point about this filthy Muggle Hitless or whatever."

"Hitler," I corrected him, "and for once you're right about the _filthy_ part. Good job." Regulus' hands tightened on his wand, and I decided not to push it any further, so I said quickly, "I suppose you have heard of Grindelwald, though."

"Of course," Regulus sneered. "Grindelwald was a great Dark wizard in the 1930s and '40s, from Germany, defeated by Dumbledore in 1945. What does this have to do with anything?"

"Then I suppose you were paying enough attention in class to hear that he was helped by a German Muggle," I said, more quickly now, trying to keep my brother's attention. He was still looking scornful, but he did seem to be listening. "Grindelwald was helped by Hitler. I don't know if Grindelwald had some vendetta against Jews, but he encouraged Hitler to start a holocaust while both of them attempted to take over Europe. Hitler vanished when Grindelwald was defeated and the Muggles won their war against the two."

Regulus rolled his eyes. "Thank you, dearest brother, for the history lesson. Now, your point?"

"Your lord," I said slowly, as though he was dim-witted, "has some sort of vendetta against anyone non pure-blood. We're encouraging a bloody holocaust here, Regulus! Even if he says now he just wants to rid them from wizarding society, if enough people listen, he's likely to go power-mad –"

"You're wrong," Regulus interrupted me harshly, looking nervous. "Shut up, Sirius, you're being an alarmist." He grabbed my wrist where my mother had bruised it, and I had to bite back a cry of pain as Regulus shoved me from his room and slammed the door behind me.

"Damn," I whispered, and trudged back to my own room.

"How'd it go?" Phineas asked me, sounding almost curious.

"I've got the worst effing family in the history of everything," I told the portrait sharply, and curled up on my bed. My face itched where my mother had slapped me, I had somehow bitten through my lip again while talking to my brother, and my wrist throbbed. I shut my eyes tightly and willed myself very hard to act my bloody age. When a hot tear managed to squeeze its way out from under my eyelid, I caught it before it hit the pillow. It was surprisingly cool after having felt so hot against my face. I wiped it hurriedly on my trouser-leg, wrapped my arms around my knees, and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

I was awakened by something poking me in the ribs with surprising insistence. Highly annoyed, I opened my eyes and found myself staring into another pair of eyes, rather bulging, in the ugly brown face of my mother's favorite house-elf, Kreacher. Upon seeing me awake, the disgusting elf's face split into a mad little grin. "Hello, sir," he said gleefully. "Mistress wanted sir awake half an hour ago. Mistress will be _most_ displeased with sir." He giggled unpleasantly at the prospect.

"Wanted me _where_?" I croaked impatiently, my voice hoarse with sleep.

"The dining room," Kreacher cackled. "Oh yes, Master and Mistress are bothdispleased …" He skipped off out the room, still cackling.

"I hope _you_ don't like the little bugger," I said, turning to Phineas' portrait. But the canvass was empty and I got no reply. Sighing, I got to my feet, shook out my robes, gently touched the dried and scabbing blood on my lower lip, and set off downstairs.

The moment I arrived in the dining room, I knew something was very wrong. The chandelier above the dining table was aglow with lit candles, and in their light I could see my family around the table. The dinner dishes were out, with crumbs on them signaling that I had missed eating, or that my family didn't care enough to wake me for the meal. My mother was sitting at the head of the table, back ramrod-straight, looking at me with her wide wild eyes and an ugly smile on her face. Regulus stood behind her, clutching the back of her chair, his knuckles still white and a slightly desperate smile on his face as well. As I entered his eyes flickered to meet mine, then darted away to look at my father. I followed his look and met my father's gaze. It was absolutely cold and unfeeling. He was the only one not smiling, which was a very bad sign indeed, and he was expertly tapping his wand against the palm of his hand.

I swallowed painfully. "Yes?" I almost-whispered, recalling myself enough to make my voice slightly louder.

"Regulus," my father said in a very icy voice, "has informed me of your insubordination."

"Insubordination?" I repeated incredulously, and looked at Regulus. My brother refused to meet my eyes. I looked at my mother, whose smile grew even wider, and then back to my father, who was still regarding me frostily. "What are you talking about?"

"I believe I told you earlier today about the Dark Lord," my father said thoughtfully. "If you are not too stupid to have forgotten it already, perhaps you may recall telling Regulus that our Lord is evil and your brother stupid?"

"I didn't say –" I started, but the words died on my tongue. Though I hadn't said _exactly_ that, it had certainly been implied. I raised my head defiantly. "Yeah, I do remember that. What of it?"

My father smiled now, a slow, charismatic, and very evil smile. "Such disobedience will not be stood for," he told me with deadly calm, and tapped his wand pointedly against his palm.

I took a deep breath, fighting hysterical laughter that was rising within me and trying to calm the hammering of my heart. "I –" I started, but it came out a barely-audible whisper. I cleared my throat and said, very deliberately and clearly, "I. Don't. Care."

My father tilted his head slightly sideways, contemplating this answer. I saw, as though in slow motion, as he raised his wand, pointed it at me, and said, as casually as if he were commenting on the weather, "_Crucio_."

Suddenly the slap my mother had given me and the throbbing of my bruised wrist seemed inconsequential. I vaguely remember repeating to myself, over and over, as my knees buckled and I fell to the ground, curling up in a vain effort to stop the pain, that I was _not_ going to cry out, I _wasn't_ going to scream, _wouldn't_ give my father the satisfaction. I think I bit through my lip a fourth time in an attempt to keep from screaming, but after being far too hot and far too cold and stabbed all over with invisible knives and cramping up everywhere and dizzy with all the intense pain, I sort of lost track of thinking, and by the time I started screaming it didn't really matter what my family thought of that, because dying would have been a very, very welcome relief.

Some last part of my mind observed with cold indifference that any wizard with the slightest shred of decency would have stopped by now, but my father has no decency, and the pain went on and on and on. With a thrill of terror quite outside the pain, I felt my body beginning to rebel against the curse, starting to shut down, and I knew that I didn't _really_ want to die. But still the pain went on, indifferent to the wishes of some foolish boy, and my voice gave out, but my mind kept shrieking, not a wordless scream now but _ohgodsohgods PeterJamesRemushelp_ –

And the pain stopped.

I came to myself lying on the dining room floor with my face pressed into the musty carpet. My lungs were starved for air, and I breathed in desperately against a sharp pain in my chest. My entire body was cramped up so that I couldn't move, and a red miasma swam in front of my eyes.

After a moment I registered voices. Regulus' – "he's alive?"; my mother's – "oh yes, this was just a lesson, come on, dearest…" and footsteps as the two walked around my body and out of the room; my father's, almost crooning down at me, "It does seem a pity I had to beat sense into you. Let this be a lesson to you, Sirius," and he kicked me hard in the stomach before walking off. I simply lay there, trying hard to breathe and trying hard not to think. After an eternity and a moment, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

 I awoke in the dark, still lying on the carpet, with every part of me aching horribly and a very welcome voice ringing inside my head, "_If you need, you can always come to my house._" 

Of course. It was blindingly obvious now.

I would leave. I would take James at his word, and run away forever from the oh-so-Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.


	3. 144 Odocoileus Court

Notes: Credit for the address of the Potter residence goes to Darth Kat, who did some deer research for me. This chapter, by the way, is dedicated to anyone who is very tired of Sirius having a motorcycle called the Black Shadow, or some variant thereof. Because Sirius isn't naming motorcycles anything with _Black_ in their name. ;)

Disclaimer: all herein belongs to JK Rowling. I am making no money; I am only having fun.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

Chapter Three

_144_ _Odocoileus Court_

Having reached a decision, I attempted to stand up. My body, still overtaxed and in pain from my father's earlier curse, protested loudly. I barely had the energy to roll onto my stomach before my body rebelled completely and up came my Hogwarts breakfast, my sweets from the Express, and then dry heaves for what should have been my dinner. Feeling even weaker than before, my throat now burning, I shakily dragged the sleeve of my robes across my arm and carefully rolled myself over to the nearest dining chair. From there, I half-climbed, half-dragged myself up the chair and to my feet. For a moment I stood shakily, furiously willing my legs to hold my weight. Deciding I might as well risk it, I took a step forward and immediately collapsed. Wincing, I hauled myself to my hands and knees and from there commenced crawling across the dining room and into the hall.

It took what seemed like forever to simply cross the room; I was panting and shaking by the time I reached the hall. I knew that I was likely to get very sick if I didn't rest for a few days and preferably drink lots of hot soup, but as it was far from likely I'd be allowed either while at 12 Grimmauld Place, I crawled on. Upon reaching the stairs to the upper landing, I didn't allow myself to stop, just placed my hands on the second step and dragged my legs up behind me. As long as I didn't think about it, I reasoned, I would be able to keep on.

I blacked out about two-thirds of the way up the steps.

It was still totally dark when I awoke again with a start, silently cursing myself for such a weakness that could trap me in this damn house even longer. I levered myself up a bit and resumed crawling. After an eternity I reached the upstairs landing, crawled along it for a little ways, and managed to reach my door. My next challenge, opening the door, was easily solved when I reached up rather desperately, accidentally grabbed the doorknob, and twisted it, the momentum knocking me into the room.

For a minute I lay breathless on the floor, trying to muster more strength to match my desperation and will to get out. I crawled shakily across the room, my hands eventually bumping into my trunk at the foot of the bed. I scrabbled around for the latches, found them, and clicked them open, throwing back the lid of my trunk. Several moments more frantic scrambling, and my hands found my wand. With a little sigh of relief, I raised it and opened my mouth to cast a light-giving spell.

Nothing came out.

Beginning to panic now, I tried again. Still nothing. Giving it my best effort, I managed to give a faint croak. Of course. I'd screamed so much I'd gone hoarse. Swallowing back another wave of nausea with the panic, I recalled something we'd learned in the magical theory portion of our Charms class.

Many witches and wizards first manifest magic when under pressure. While a wizard's wand helps him channel that magic, if under pressure, with or without his wand, the wizard may perform wandless magic. This magic, though usually involuntary, may be channeled, if the wizard's will is strong enough.

_Come on_, I thought, clinging tightly to those words. _I _need_ this. Come on. _Light!

My wand blossomed with white radiance. I breathed a sigh of relief and raised it above my trunk, peering through it. Spellbooks. Potion ingredients. Owl treats for James' owl Jocelyn. A handmade photo album. Lists of prank ideas. My whole life was right here, in this trunk. Everything I needed to survive until I graduated Hogwarts. And I planned to let it be my ticket out of here, too.

If I could get my voice to work.

Now I pointed my lighted wand at my own throat, praying that it would work, that I would be able to cast a voice-restoring spell on myself and not something different or damaging.

"What is sir doing?" said a sneakily polite voice from behind me.

I turned with an audible gasp. "Kreacher!" I choked. Which meant I had my voice back, that the spell had worked. Excellent. Except that there was a house-elf standing in my bedroom, looking suspiciously from me to my wand to my trunk and back with something very like comprehension in his eyes. "Kreacher," I said again, "get out of here."

"Sir is running away," Kreacher muttered. "This will not do at all. Master will be most displeased, and it will break poor Mistress's heart."

"She doesn't have a heart, Kreacher," I told the house-elf shortly, all too aware that my throat, momentarily feeling perfectly normal, was swiftly becoming sore again. If I lost my voice …

Kreacher was shaking his head, large ears flapping. "It is only Kreacher's duty, sir, to tell his Master and Mistress what sir is doing."

"No, don't –" I started, before it occurred to me that if I was running away, I wouldn't have to worry ever again what the disgusting house-elf thought of me. With a sort of mental shrug, I pointed my wand at Kreacher. His eyes widened in sudden panic, and I pronounced, "_Petrificus totalus_!" The house-elf's body snapped straight as a board, then toppled over backwards. I had the funny urge to kick Kreacher, or say something taunting, before I remembered my father's voice, murmuring _let that be a lesson to you_ and his crushing kick to my ribs. No, I wasn't going to be like my father.

I stared for a moment longer at Kreacher before recalling my increasingly sore throat. Turning, I tapped my trunk, murmuring the spell that would transform it into a Portkey, direct transportation from my room at number 12, Grimmauld Place, to James' house in Wiltshire, at number 144, Odocoileus Court. It seemed to work. I took a last look around the room.

"Going, are you?" someone said softly from above my head.

I turned and saw Phineas Nigellus leaning against the inside of the picture frame, regarding me thoughtfully.

"Yeah," I said hoarsely, "yeah, Phineas, I'm going. And I'm not coming back."

Phineas frowned. "Here you go again, feeling sorry for yours –"

"He put the Cruciatus on me, Phineas," I interrupted. "My father."

The portrait's eyes widened. "I do believe," he said, albeit dryly, "that this does surpass the realm of teenage self-pity and tread into those waters of self-preservation. Though," he added, glaring at me fiercely, "I'm sure you deserved it, whatever you did. I always did say you were worthless."

"Sure, sure," I muttered, not really paying attention. "Goodbye, Phineas." Clutching my wand tightly, I pressed my other hand against my trunk. With a jolt to my navel, which I queasily realized probably wasn't going to do much good to my overall physical health, the dark bedroom dissolved around me. I'm still not entirely sure, but I think that snarky old portrait of Phineas Nigellus may have winked at me as the room vanished in a rushing blur.

A moment later the world solidified, and I collapsed on a spiky-haired doormat that cheerfully read _Welcome!_ in the faint predawn light, with little painted-on paw prints around the word. I found myself grinning slightly. So very much like James, I thought, to have such a silly cute front doormat.

Then I had time for one more thought, which was _oh no, not _again, before the world turned dark around me and I collapsed on the Potters' front doorstep, out cold.

When I came to, I was no longer lying on the front steps of a redbrick house, a brass number 144 above my head, nor was I back in my horrible dark room at Grimmauld Place, nor was I at Hogwarts, blinking awake after a horrible nightmare; I was somewhere far more disorienting than that.

I was in a large bed with a blue-checkered quilt and a down pillow, in an airy room with faded yellow wallpaper and sunlight streaming in through a large open window, lighting the yellow walls and making the checkered window curtains flutter a bit in the breeze. I blinked bemusedly at the window, wondering dazedly if I was in some weirdly cheerful place people go when they die.

"Sirius!" someone gasped, sounding extremely relieved.

I turned my head towards the voice and saw James, sitting by my bed on a white wicker chair, holding _Quidditch Through the Ages_ upside-down in his hand. "James?" I asked, my voice coming out in a hoarse whisper.

James' eyes were shining suspiciously brightly as he said in a rather shaky voice, "What the hell happened to you, Sirius? Last night at about five in the morning, Mum was downstairs organizing some morning reports for St. Mungo's when she heard this great thump on the door. She goes to see what it is, right, and it's your trunk, mate, it slammed right into the door. Lucky thing it did, too, Mum says, because …" James, who had been speaking rapidly, suddenly trailed off, and ended rather hoarsely, "…because, Mum says, you were pretty far gone there." He hastily swiped the back of his hand across his eyes, knocking his glasses sideways, and readjusted them, looking embarrassed, then continued, "Mum works for St. Mungo's, you know."

I nodded, tried to speak, coughed, and then managed, "Yeah, you've said."

Grinning shakily, James said, "Anyway, Mum says she's fixed your throat as best she could, and your lip, and that bruise on your wrist, and she thinks that now you've woken up your muscles can relax properly too." He paused, frowning, then added hesitantly, "Mum says … it looks like you were under the Cruciatus."

I nodded mutely.

James bit his lip. "Hell. Who –?"

"My father," I said softly. My throat was definitely feeling better, now James had mentioned it. I rather wished I still had the excuse of a given-out voice, because I really didn't feel like an interrogation, albeit a well-meant one, and I really didn't want to relive the previous evening just yet.

James glanced at me, perhaps reading these thoughts in my face. "Look," he said finally, "right now, it's best to get some fluids into you. Would you like tea? Some sort of soup?"

"Yes, soup, please," I said, and my eyes filled embarrassingly with sudden stingingly hot tears as I remembered wishing for exactly this while crawling up the dark stairs. "Thanks," I added.

Pausing in the doorway, James said quietly, "You're welcome, Padfoot." He turned, making as though to leave.

"Wait!" I called hoarsely in sudden panic. James checked on the threshold and popped his head back into the room, eyebrows raised in question. Feeling rather silly, I said, "About me staying here …"

"Of course," James said immediately. "For as long as you need to." He gave me a bright but somewhat anxious grin and disappeared to get me some soup.

The next couple of days passed in a sort of blur. I remember eating an awful lot of soup, usually brought up by James. My throat continued to be sore, and eventually Mrs. Potter diagnosed me with having come down with the flu on top of it all. I was forced to drink weird-tasting potions along with the soup, so I was more often than not only half-awake. At this point Mrs. Potter began spending a lot of time in my room, constantly checking up at me. I only remember snatches of it, but whenever I was awake enough to notice her, she'd give me a really kind smile, looking like she truly cared what happened to me. At this point my eyesight would go all blurry and I'd have to bury my face into the pillow, feeling grateful and bewildered and very sad all at once.

After what James claimed was about a week, I began to come round again. I was heartily sick of the checkered quilt and cheerful yellow walls by this point, and in the effort to keep me entertained, James had gone through every single Quidditch book in the house. One sunny morning, as James came into my room clutching _International Quidditch: A History_, I decided I'd had it.

"_No_, Prongs," I croaked, annoyed. James, who had just sat down in his wicker chair, looked at me in surprise. "We've already read that bloody book," I told him, "and I'm really tired of being stuck in this bed."

James looked uncomfortable. "You're still really weak –"

"Forget that," I interrupted him. "I'm never going to stop being weak if I'm lying around all the time." I looked hard at James. "When was the last time you listened to what anyone else told you was best, anyway?"

Looking startled, James said, "Pulling pranks has nothing to do with keeping your best friend healthy."

"Forget that too," I said. "James, I _need_ to go outside. I'm going mad cooped up like this!"

James sighed, and I knew I had won. "Okay, but first you have to prove to me you can walk from your bed to the door without any assistance." He got up from the chair and went to the doorway, then looked back at me expectantly.

"Right," I said, and looked around, judging how hard it would be to meet this demand. I was already sitting up, propped against about three pillows, so I pushed the covers back and swung my legs over the side of the bed and onto a polished wooden floor. From there, to my own surprise, I managed to stand. My legs shook a bit, and the room threatened to spin, but after a moment I steadied myself and took a hesitant step forward. When my legs didn't give out, I took another step, and then a third. Trusting myself enough to look away from my feet, I lifted my head and grinned triumphantly at James, who was looking impressed in spite of himself. Starting to laugh, a little hoarsely and almost uncontrollably, I made my way across the room and made a show of falling dramatically into my friend's arms, still laughing like a maniac.

James was chuckling a bit too. "Argh, geroff, Padfoot you big lump." He shoved me upright and regarded me critically for a moment. "That was pretty good. Right, where to?"

"Well, seeing as the only places I've ever been in my life are Grimmauld Place," I counted off on my fingers rather sarcastically, "most of London, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, the Forest, some of the mountains, your front doorstep, and this room –" I looked up at James, raising my eyebrows and holding up eight fingers " – I think that anywhere else would count as pretty new and exciting. Let's see _your_ room, shall we?"

"Right," said James, so off we went.

I knew right away I loved James' house. The upstairs landing was carpeted, and looked out on the two-story room below it, that seemed to serve the Potters as sitting room and dining room and study all in one. All the downstairs rooms, I could see by leaning over the banister on the landing, opened up onto each other, with large windows letting in sun and air and the smell of freshly-cut grass from outside. The stairs and upstairs landing – indeed, all the upstairs rooms except the lavatories, James told me – were carpeted, a welcome change both for my feet and peace of mind after all the rough wood or cold stone of the Black house. 

James led me across the landing, past a number of moving pictures of the Potter family, all of whom smiled and waved as we passed. James saluted them cheerfully and reached for the knob of the next door down. He paused, turned to me, and announced, "Welcome, my friend Padfoot, to the room of your esteemed colleague Mr. Prongs."

"Charmed," I grinned.

I don't suppose _charming_ is really the best word to describe James' room. _Cluttered_ is probably a better term. It was bright too, the window flung open, and James' junk was spread everywhere. His spellbooks were scattered on and around his desk, Jocelyn the owl's cage was tossed sideways on the floor, and spilled Every Flavor Beans covered half his Ballycastle Bats quilt. 

"I love it," I told James honestly, and sat on the Bean-covered bedspread, slightly winded from the trek from my room to his. Looking around, I saw some movement among the Beans, which upon closer inspection revealed itself to be a dozen wizarding photographs. I picked them up in curiosity and saw that it seemed to be a number of pictures of us, the Marauders … though the last photograph was something else entirely.

"You've got a photo of _Evans_!" I crowed.

James went bright red. "Yes. Well." He glared at my grinning face, and with Seeker-quick reflexes, snatched the photo from my grip. "Never mind that." He scrutinized me for a moment. "Want to play Snap?"

So we spent the afternoon on the floor of James' room, having bits of paper blow up in our faces. Sometime during those games, I realized with a funny twist of the stomach that little pieces of paper were all they were. Not clever tricks, or even Muggle cards, but some silly game invented by wizards … wizards who could have been exactly like my parents.

That thought stuck with me all through the night, as I lay in the checker-quilted bed in the yellow-walled room, and the next morning, though I came down and had breakfast with the Potters (meeting James' dad for the first time, a man with my friend's untidy hair and a comically stuffy air about him), afterwards I didn't really feel like doing anything with James. James, who seemed to understand that I still needed time to myself, recommended that I spend the morning in the garden, so I went outside.

The garden was nice enough, really, this sort of rambling mass of green things and flowers surrounding the large brick house, with a matching brick path rambling through the sprawling green things. I wandered around on the path for a while, going a little faster than my body really wished to, because I felt that if I went fast enough I might be able to get away from my thoughts.

Going through my head, played out as though a wizarding photo had been glued in front of my eyes, was my mother's mad grin, my father's disgustingly charismatic one, my brother's half-wild eyes. _They're all just a bunch of idiots,_ I told myself. _They won't be able to do anything to you anymore._

And then I'd remember the conviction on their faces when they spoke of the Dark Lord, and of how my father hadn't even hesitated before performing an Unforgivable, and I knew that this wasn't over at all. If there were enough people like them, my family's Dark Lord was likely to become a real threat.

Ironic, really, that I could know with such conviction that my own family was going to be the death of me.

I stayed outside all that day, coming in at dinner and doing my best to be sociable. I knew the Potters could see straight through it, but I couldn't quite bring myself to care. For the next couple of days, it went on the same way; I remembered to be polite, and thanked them repeatedly for letting me stay, and grinned at James when he smiled at me, but my mind was still trapped back in thoughts of the House of Black and my relatives and the horrible things they wanted to happen. Between meals, I spent all my time out in the garden, certainly not because it was better for my peace of mind, but because if I was outside the Potters couldn't look at me concernedly or attempt to cheer me up.

One day, about two weeks after I'd come to number 144 Odocoileus Court, I was sitting out on a homemade-looking swing, staring up at some puffy clouds scudding across the sky and trying not to think about much of anything. I suddenly felt another presence in the general vicinity. Looking in a more earthly direction, I found myself face to face with a very stubborn-looking James.

Uh oh.

"Hello, Prongs," I said wearily.

Instead of saying hello like any sane person, James said, "Right. That's it. Come with me." He grabbed my elbow and forcibly dragged me off the swing, then began leading me down one of the rambling brick paths, not in the direction of the house, but in the direction of a cute little shed I'd seen from James' window.

"James, what on earth are we doing?"

"Giving you something," James said shortly, stopping up short as we reached the shed. He pushed the shed's door open and stepped aside, looking annoyingly righteous.

I gaped.

Standing proudly inside the shed was the biggest and most gleaming motorcycle I'd ever seen. "_James_," I gasped. "_Where – how –_"

"I remembered you saying you wanted a motorcycle," James said, looking pleased with himself. "Anyway, behold the remnants of my father's wild youth."

"Your _father's_ –" I said, turning to stare at him, before I saw a wicked smile playing across James' face. "Prat!" I added. "I wasn't taken in for a moment."

"Sure, sure," James grinned. He seemed to recall himself, and his face sobered. "Listen, mate. If I know you, you're going to work your tail off getting this thing to fly. I also know you can pull it off, because you must've done underage wizardry at some point and gotten away with it." He took a deep breath. "Anyway, all I'm saying is, I want you to have something to do, until either you get that baby into the air or you're ready to talk about what happened to make you leave."

I nodded mutely.

James made to go, then checked and turned back to me. "By the way, I invited Peter and Remus over. They're coming on the twelfth of August."

"Right," I mumbled. James left, and I turned back to the motorcycle, feeling hurt. So now James thought I didn't have a say about our friends coming over, did he? Even when we were living in the same house, too. Well, bugger James. I had a motorcycle to fly, and even if it took me all summer, it _was_ going to leave the ground.

~*~

I didn't know Remus and Peter had arrived until I came back, rather oily, from a day's careful spellwork on the motorcycle, which I had rather sarcastically started mentally referring to as the White Dog. I came into the house, wiping my blackened hands on my jeans, and almost literally bumped into a very startled-looking Peter.

"Wormtail!" I said on reflex.

"Sirius!" he squeaked, looking very happy to see me, and blinked at my dirty clothes. "What have you been doing?"

"Enchanting a motorcycle," I said shortly, sudden annoyance catching up with me. "Move it, Pete. I need to wash my hands." Now I had two extra people and their sympathetic glances to deal with. I stared at Peter's retreating back and suddenly felt a little guilty. It wasn't Peter's fault that James had invited him over, and it wasn't Peter's fault that I didn't think I could face Remus just now. It was entirely my own fault that I was afraid I'd see Remus and make a right idiot of myself and start saying things that I hadn't been willing to tell anyone all summer.

I made my way into the kitchen, going around Mr. Potter, who was happily humming something and ladling a thick stew into six bowls. I washed my hands under hot water from the kitchen sink, taking rather longer than I needed to, then dried my hands on a dishtowel and went out. Going along the passageway to the dining room, I heard my name amidst the voices coming from the dining table. I stopped walking and strained my ears.

" … just needs a bit of time," Mrs. Potter was saying.

"Mum," said James' voice, "he's had _all sodding summer_. He's not coming round. He's just spending all his time with that damn motorcycle –"

"That you gave him in the first place," Remus cut in mildly. 

"All the same," James' voice continued impatiently. "I'm – I'm _worried_ about him."

"Worried?" Peter sounded puzzled. "Look, James, if he wants some time to himself that's not a _really_ bad thing, is it?"

"You didn't see him when he first came," James said in a low voice, so that I had to edge farther down the passage to hear. "He wasn't even _trying_ to get better."

"Understandably, James," said Mrs. Potter, and I could hear the frown in her voice. "I'd like to hear of someone _else_ who's fared better after being under the Cruciatus."

There was a long and uncomfortable pause.

"Do we _know_ that?" James said finally, so softly I had to come almost to the doorway to hear him. "Mum, you said yourself that you've never seen anyone that damaged from the Cruciatus. And Sirius said his own _father_ did that to him. So … could he be … I don't know … making it up?"

"Why?" Remus said coldly.

"He's said himself his mother's insane," James said, speaking rapidly. "Might it be that it's not just her, that it's some genetic thing and –"

I turned away, feeling numb. So. James Potter had the nerve to think that, not only had I come to his house under false pretenses or having hurt _myself_, but I was also insane having done so, and it was all my mother's fault. I was shaking with rage by then, and had half a mind to go into that room and hex James, and half a mind to just storm out.

I stormed out, right past Mr. Potter, who was coming out of the kitchen levitating the bowls of soup and stared after me, perplexed. I went out of the house into the twilit rambling garden, and marched right across it, uncaringly crushing some lovely flowers on my way to the shed. I laughed as I crushed the flowers. Damn things deserved it for looking so cheerful and for belonging to such a _nice_ family. 

Reaching the shed, I slammed the door open and stared for a moment at my gleamingly black White Dog, hesitating for one final moment. Then I strode over to the motorcycle and wheeled it out of the shed, climbing atop it in the warm twilight air. Not bothering to worry whether the spells I'd set on it would actually _work_, I kicked it to life, tapped it twice with my wand, and found myself and my beautiful motorcycle rising smoothly into the air with a muffled roar.

I pulled up at about fifty feet and circled twice around the house, wild laughter with the high glee of freedom spiraling down to the rooftop. Then I turned my motorcycle in the direction of the rising half-moon and sped off towards it through the air, not a thought in my head of where I was flying _to_, but every thought of where _from_ – from my horrid family and their curses and their precious Dark Lord, from James' bright house and his caring parents and my bloody friends who didn't seem to be the friends I'd thought them to be, from my whole damn life.


	4. Fellow Feeling

Notes: Herein be the slashiness. Mind the fluff.

Disclaimer: all herein belongs to JK Rowling. I am making no money; I am only having fun.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

Chapter Four

_Fellow Feeling_

Sunlight shone down on me, sweeping one way and then another across my face as the trees above my head swayed in the morning breeze. I blinked up at them in puzzlement. Trees? I was lying sprawled on the ground, amidst dirt and grass and leaf mold. I turned my head sideways a bit, and could see my motorcycle too.

Ah. Of course. The previous night I'd flown off – flown all night – and at last, very tired, landed among a copse of trees, immediately falling asleep. So here I was, and I was definitely _not_ going back, to my damn false friends.

I sat up.

And gave a quickly stifled yell of surprise. "_Remus_!"

For there Remus Lupin was, sitting comfortably on the ground a few feet away from me, with his cloak spread out under him and a look of mild interest on his face. "Hello," he said evenly.

"How the hell did you find me?" I said, sounding rougher than I'd intended to cut through the unexpected warmth and relief I'd felt upon seeing him.

"I tracked you," Remus said, smiling wryly, gesturing to the wand lying beside him and the broom slightly further back, in the grass. 

"What about the others?" I found myself saying bitterly. Could I control _anything_ that came out of my mouth? "Did _they_ try to track me, or were they too afraid I'd be mad and unreasonable?"

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Well, if you want them to think that, you're certainly doing a good job of it."

I took a deep breath, doing my best to calm down. "_Well_?"

"Of course they went looking for you," Remus said gently. "Mr. Potter saw you leave, and we all heard you go off on your motorcycle, so we knew the general direction. I just happened to find you first." He paused, tracing a pattern in the leaves with a finger. "And whatever you heard, last night …"

"If you're going to say James didn't mean a word of it, you're going to have to make a really good job of explaining it," I said shortly.

Remus sighed, sounding almost impatient. "He's _worried_, Sirius. He's not accusing you of being a psychopath, for goodness sakes. He was asking for his mother's medical advice, if nothing else." Remus abandoned the leaves and looked up at me again, very gravely. "From what he's told us, we haven't really got any counter-proof you _haven't_ gone mad."

"You – what –" I sputtered, enraged. "How could you – _Moony_ –"

He simply looked at me evenly, and waited for my righteous stammering to die out.  "Perhaps it would be best," he said finally, "if you'd make the entire story clear."

I squeezed my eyes shut with remembered pain. "I'd rather not."

"Look," he said softly, and laid a hand on my knee. I opened my eyes and unwillingly looked back up at him. "I know this is hard. I _know_. But sometimes things are easier if you share them with someone else."

For a moment I simply looked at him, and he looked back at me, a very strange sort of understanding in his eyes. My heart began pounding very fast, from fear of what I was going to say and from something else entirely. My knee was very, very warm where Remus' hand rested upon it. I took a deep, shuddering breath, licked my lips, and began, "When I got home, my mother was upset with me …"

It was sometime later when I finished telling him. The telling had been as difficult as I had feared, going in fits and starts at the more painful parts. The only time I'd been able to really speak rationally was when I was explaining what I'd heard of the Dark Lord, which was somehow a darker and more remote terror then the rest of the story. The only thing really keeping me going was Remus, who kept his hand on my knee and his eyes on my face all through the telling.

Now that I had finished, I felt both very drained and strangely light.

The both of us were silent for a minute, simply looking at each other.

"I used to think," Remus said thoughtfully, breaking the silence, "that no one would ever be able to understand what I went through. That no one else had to deal with inner demons, and no one else ever got physically ripped apart, and knew that it was, at least in part, their own fault." He shook his head thoughtfully. "Oh, I knew there were other werewolves, but it's not likely I'll ever really meet any, unless I run into one at the Registry." Remus smiled ruefully. "This is incredibly selfish of me, but in a way I'm almost glad this happened. Because I think we understand each other better for it."

I nodded slowly, not quite trusting myself to speak.

"Your parents," Remus continued thoughtfully, "do you really think they're evil?"

"Yeh –" I started to say, and stopped. "My mother's crazy, Remus. I don't think anyone can be really evil without being mad, but they can probably be mad without being evil."

The corner of Remus's mouth quirked up in a wry smile. "So you're saying your mum is a poor misguided soul?"

That actually drew a chuckle out of me. "Of course." I sobered. "Regulus is. Misguided, I mean. He's only fifteen."

"And you're only just seventeen," Remus reminded me gently.

With a jolt of shock, I realized this was true. I'd turned seventeen, mid-July, without even noticing. I now remembered having come back from a day's work on my motorcycle to a dinner with the Potters', where they served cake and ice cream for dessert, and James asked me enthusiastically how the bike was coming, and finally deflated when I only wandered off to my room. 

"I've been a bit of an idiot," I observed.

"With a fine excuse," Remus pointed out. "James _understands_, Sirius. He's not going to be angry with you because you've had one of the worst summers I can possibly imagine anyone having."

Nodding, I sighed shakily. "I suppose. But …" This was still bothering me, the last bit of weight still lodged in my chest from my horrible few days at the beginning of summer with my family. "Remus, I didn't … I didn't really expect my family to be capable of Unforgivables. I thought they were mostly talk."

"I'm not too surprised," Remus said mildly. "From what you've said, your father is impulsive. It may have only been the first thing he could think of to 'teach you a lesson', as he put it. At least, afterwards he justified it like that. I doubt he'll be doing it again any time soon, though."

I half-wished that Remus couldn't be so analytical, but I was also grateful that someone could step back and take an impersonal view of the whole thing. Looking at my friend, sitting there on his cloak and regarding me with a sort of calm empathy, I suddenly felt like crying again. I hadn't done a whole lot to deserve such a wonderful friend, had I?

"One thing's certain," I said fiercely, half to distract myself from the tears pricking the back of my eyes. "I will never, ever, no matter what happens, _ever_ use an Unforgivable Curse. _Ever_." It suddenly seemed very important that this be the absolute truth, that there would never be the question, in either Remus's or my own mind, that I could possibly be like my family. "I swear. Never, never."

Remus nodded. "I believe you."

I swallowed. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said, smiling. "Anyway," in a brisker voice, "are you willing to go back now? The others will find us soon anyway, and it'll be better if we meet them midair." He got to his feet and held out a hand to me.

I grabbed his hand almost desperately, and he pulled me up and to him, so that we were standing there pressed up against each other. My heartbeat quickened involuntarily. "No," I found myself saying. "No, I don't want to go yet. It's – it's too nice here. I want to stay for a bit."

Remus nodded. We were silent a minute more, listening to the forest sounds around us, wind rustling the trees, insects humming, birds chirping; and it was a companionable silence we shared, reminiscent of other silences Padfoot and Moony had shared of a moonlit night. I realized we were still clasping hands.

"Remus?" I muttered.

 "Yes?"

"I …" I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to say. _Thank you_? But that didn't seem enough. Hardly enough. Never enough, for having gotten me to bleed the poison of my memories, for having been there, a quiet steady support like leaning against the warm fur of his beautiful other form, for having been so damn wonderful.

_I love you_, I wanted to tell him. Told him, over and over, silently and fervently, as I tried to think of what to say aloud.

Actually, what I really wanted to say was _kiss me._

Hang on, check the thought. I prodded it with my mind, one more thing as upside-down and mad and out of place as the rest of the things that had happened to me this summer.

Since when did I want Remus Lupin to kiss me?

Well, since right now, at any rate. Since all this last year, really, if I was going to be honest with myself. The strange thing about Remus that had been niggling my mind, and I hadn't quite noticed because I'd been too busy keeping up the party in my head, doing all those mad dumb things for the sake of the intoxicating defiance that had made me run away from home. And here I was, standing on the mossy ground of a small woods, with the one person I'd been able to tell about it and had actually, by some twist of fate, _understood_ it, and I wanted to kiss him.

Hell.

"Yes?" Remus prompted softly.

"I …" I said again with great eloquence, and without quite telling myself to, leaned forward so that my face was only inches from Remus's. His eyes widened, and I could feel his breath against my face quicken. "_Please_ …" I whispered.

With a little choked-off laugh, Remus leaned forward those last few inches.

It was a pitiful kiss, really. We broke it off, eyed each other, and began giggling a bit nervously. Remus calmed down first, and said hesitantly, "Sirius … what on earth are we doing, really?"

"Er, trying to kiss, I think."

Remus cleared his throat. "Want to try again?"

So we did. This time we had each other's unspoken permission. I tilted my head a bit sideways, and Remus leaned a bit further, and then we were really _kissing_. Without thinking about it my hands went out and clutched Remus's shoulders, then slid around to his back, pulling him closer. I felt Remus's own hands in my hair, tangling in it. As we meshed together, I heard myself making a funny little noise, like I desperately needed air, only it wasn't air I needed, it was _Remus_. 

And then I did need air, and pulled back a bit to breathe, and glance at Remus to make sure this really was all right. What I saw reassured me greatly – he was flushed and looked overjoyed and somewhat uneasy, and I was fairly sure my face looked much the same.

"Sirius …" he said hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

He was still looking nervous. Even though I knew I looked the same way, it was a bit surprising; I can't think of many times when I've seen Remus be anything other than calm and collected. "I …" he said. "Er, this is going to sound absolutely ridiculous … I've never kissed anyone before, and I was wondering if I managed all right."

I laughed. I'd been laughing a lot this summer, but it was always desperate laughter, because there wasn't anything else I could do. This was different; this was because I was delighted, and because what Remus had just said seemed like the silliest thing ever, because I knew firsthand he could kiss very well, and because Remus's mouth quirked upwards and he began laughing too, and because we were standing there with our arms still wrapped around each other, now clutching each other for support as we grew weak with giddy laughter.

After a while we calmed down, and in between chuckles I said, "Mr. Moony's observation that he is being ridiculous is wholly agreed with. Furthermore, his concerns that his kissing is anything other than very good indeed are completely unfounded."

Remus grinned. "Mr. Moony requests that Mr. Padfoot prove it."

So I spent the next five minutes or so proving that Remus Lupin was in fact very good at kissing.

Eventually Remus tightened his arms around my waist in a quick hug and pulled away. "We should really get back to James's house," he said regretfully.

"Yeah." I remembered why I'd wanted to kiss Remus in the first place, why I'd just spent the last five minutes having the most fun I'd had in a very long time, and before I could think better of it I told him, "I love you."

Remus just looked at me for a moment. "Yes, I know," he said quietly.

I grinned embarrassedly and wandered over to my motorcycle. Remus followed me and ended up standing on the other side of the bike, running a hand over the chrome.

"It's a wonderful bike," he said. "James mentioned that you'd done a lot of charms on it. Did you fly it here?"

"Yeah."

Remus smiled slightly, still looking at the motorcycle, not looking up or meeting my eyes. "He was going to buy it himself. He thought it might cheer you up, after I mentioned –" Remus stopped, shook his head slightly, and finished feebly, "So we all pooled our money together, and James bought it."

"You thought of it, didn't you?" I said. I knew he wouldn't say, that he'd give James as much credit as he felt our friend deserved, but I'd caught what Remus had started to say and cut off. "You remembered what I said, when I mentioned I wanted one, on the train." I grinned at Remus's hair; his head was still bowed as he inspected the motorcycle. "You're _brilliant_. It kept me sane this summer, you know."

Remus finally looked up, eyes dancing. It seemed that he'd been looking down to cover laughter. "I know," he said softly, in a voice infused with mirth. "I love you too." 

Wonderful warmth bloomed somewhere in my chest, and I found myself giving Remus the same sort of absolutely loopy smile he was giving me. "Come on," I said, climbing onto the motorcycle. "Get on behind me. We'll fly back." At his uncertain look, I added, "Got Invisibility Boosters on the thing. It's all covered. It's as safe as you're ever going to be around me."

"How reassuring," Remus retorted, and climbed on behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. As we took off his grip tightened, and a chill morning wind rushed into our faces.

Regardless of the icy wind, I felt impossibly warm the whole ride back to James's house.


	5. A New Order

Notes: I _knew_ I'd manage to work Lily into this story somehow. Anyway, here be the ending. I'd be most delighted that, upon completion of your reading, you'd use the friendly review button and tell me what you think.

Disclaimer: all herein belongs to JK Rowling. I am making no money; I am only having fun.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

Chapter Five

_A New Order_

I was half afraid that, upon arriving back at 144 Odocoileus Court, I'd be yelled at or even hit for running away. I found nothing of the sort; when Remus and I landed by the shed, the whole lot staying at James's house rushed out and descended on us with cries of relief; Mr. Potter shook Remus's hand repeatedly until I was afraid Moony might get whiplash; Peter jumped up and down, squeaking that he was so very glad to see us and they'd all been very worried; Mrs. Potter rushed over to me and enveloped me in such a hug that I began to fear I'd never be able to breathe 

(or kiss Remus)

again; James stood a little back from all the commotion, but the utmost relief on his face spoke volumes. In the confusion, it was a while before it was sorted out that they'd set up a system of spells to alert each other when someone found me, and that once Remus had discovered me the rest of them had hurried back to the house, but that we'd been gone so long (I bit my lip yet again, this time to keep from laughing) that they'd started to worry again. And finally there was a break in the commotion.

"I'm sorry I went off like that," I said into the pause.

Everyone stopped talking altogether and looked at me.

"I really shouldn't have," I pressed on, feeling a bit stupid about it and knowing it needed to be said. "Especially after you've been so … patient … with me all summer." I took a deep breath. "And I'm ready to explain what happened. To make me run away from home."

"Not right now," James said firmly. I looked at him; he gave me a half-smile that told me I wasn't getting away with not telling altogether, but that he had patience for me left. "I'm abso-bloody-lutely starving." He turned to Mrs. Potter. "Breakfast, Mum?"

She laughed, and we trailed into the house.

As the four of us sat at the dining table, smelling hotcake batter and bacon wafting in from the kitchen and listening to Mr. Potter bang around in the next room, muttering about finding the _Prophet_, Remus raised his eyebrows at James.

"Abso-bloody-lutely, Prongs? You do know that isn't a word."

"Yes," said James calmly, and "thanks, Mum," as Mrs. Potter came out, bearing our breakfasts. Mr. Potter joined us a moment later, newspaper-less and looking rather disgruntled, though he cheered up upon seeing the food.

We ate in relative silence. I kept my eyes on my plate, feeling James and Peter shooting me furtive glances, as they had on that train ride from Hogwarts to London, three months ago and seeming ages before that. I'd promised to tell them what had happened; I knew I'd have to, and the sooner I got it over with, the better. But there was something different in telling the story of my horrible family to Remus when we were alone amid trees at dawn, and telling four other people about it at midmorning in a cheerful dining room. 

I took a deep breath and looked up. As if on cue, everyone stopped eating and looked at me. Faced by all those expectant eyes, my own darted away and came to rest on the safest thing – which happened to be Remus's face. One corner of his mouth turned up in a secret smile, and I felt his almost-too-warm hand slide onto my knee, just where it had lain during the first telling.

And somehow that did make it easier, and I told them.

~*~

"Earth to Prongs." 

I waved a hand in front of my friend's bespectacled face. He didn't take any notice; he was gazing straight past me, across the packed platform, at the rather pretty girl with red hair and striking green eyes who was busy saying hello to one of her friends. I waved the hand in front of James's face a little more vigorously.

"Huh?" James blinked at me twice, seemed to recognize who I was, and grinned. "Sorry. You were saying?"

"Not much. Just wondering if you could tear your eyes from the lovely Miss Evans."

James began to blush, opened his mouth, closed it, coughed, and said quickly, "I've been thinking – d'you think Evans will take me seriously if I'm _not_ trying to impress her?"

I bit back a smile. James was asking an honest question here, and even if it did amuse me, I had to answer as straight-faced as possible. "Sometimes people will like you more if they can tell you're not pretending."

James blinked again. "I see." He straightened his shoulders and turned towards Lily, who was still talking with her friend. "Right. Be myself with Evans." He turned back to me. "I don't know if I can do that." His hand rose in the direction of his hair.

I caught it and pushed it back to my friend's side. "No hair-mussing, James. And call her _Lily_, for goodness sakes." Seeing the panic-stricken look on James' face, I relented. "Of course you can, as you cheesily put it, 'be yourself' with her. If she doesn't like that, she's not worth your time. What?"

For James was giving me a very odd look. "You really did grow up this summer," he said in a quiet voice.

"Not much," I told him. "Don't hold your breath waiting for me to become a reasonable adult. Now." I took James' shoulders and pushed him firmly in Lily's direction. "Good luck, oh admirable friend."

He grinned back at me and sauntered off.

I leaned against the side of the train and watched him cross the platform. It was so nice to be back here, even if it was London and far closer to Grimmauld Place than I would have liked. Grimmauld Place. I'd never have to see it again. Mr. and Mrs. Potter had offered to take home both James and me (and Remus and Peter, if they wished) during the Christmas holiday, and the Easter one; Mr. Potter had even added that once I'd left Hogwarts, I'd always be welcome for Sunday tea. A home away from home, whatever home was going to be. With James as a brother, I supposed. I grinned. If Prongs had his way, I'd also be having Lily Evans as a sister-in-law of sorts.

Speaking of which …

I turned my attention back to James. He was standing in front of Lily, his hands twisting together behind his back – the boy was _nervous_! And Lily was watching him with a peculiar expression on her face, half skepticism and half surprise. Thanking Padfoot for lending me excellent hearing, I listened to what my friend was saying.

" … so let's just pretend, for a moment, that when you always brush me off, I _do_ mind. Never mind that I never have the decency to ask you straight out, not offhand."

"Decency?" Lily repeated faintly.

James shuffled his feet. "Yeah. Anyway, seriously, Ev – Lily, I'd really like it if you'd go out with me sometime."

"Just … sometime."

"Well – er, Hogsmeade weekend, I suppose," James said, both looking and sounding rather flustered. "No, wait, that's in October – never mind that, what would you like to do?"

"What would _I_ like to do?" Lily echoed.

(I might have worried that the girl couldn't do anything but repeat what James said, but – goodness, he was acting like a normal human being around her. I was impressed.)

"Yeah – do you like sitting around in the Three Broomsticks drinking butterbeer and pretending like you're having a good time talking to me about nothing in particular?" James allowed himself a grin, but it wasn't his usual self-assured grin at all. He _was_ nervous. "Because, I mean, if you don't think that's a good time, we can do something different – Quidditch, or a … a candle-lit dinner, or – or –" He floundered.

"Walk by the lake in the evening, picnic dinner, no kissing unless I start it," Lily said quickly. "Deal?"

James glowed. "Deal."

She thrust a freckled hand at him, giving him a wary look that put me in mind of a hippogriff around annoying little kids. James didn't seem to see this look, because instead of taking her hand, he gave her a quick and very enthusiastic hug, swept her a bow, and bounded back in my direction, leaving the poor girl standing there and looking more startled than ever.

"I did it!" James crowed, almost leaping on me in his excitement.

"Good job, Prongs," I said, fending him off as best I could by scrambling onto the train and into the compartment we had agreed to meet Peter and Remus. The two of them were sitting there, Peter once again fooling around with his Snap deck, Remus once again reading. I leapt in Remus's direction and pretended to cower behind him as James bounded into the compartment.

"What's all this?" Remus asked amusedly.

"James has discovered girls," I told him.

Remus snorted. "James discovered girls when he was twelve."

"Fair enough." I grinned at James as he made a face at us. "Let's just say that girls have discovered James back."

"Lily Evans?" Remus said curiously.

"Indeed," James said, and slumped into a seat. "Whoa. I didn't know I could get so nervous just asking her out."

"It's a good sign," Remus said absently, turning back to his book. "If you're nervous it means you actually like her." He shot me a grin from behind his book. "Nervous?" he muttered.

"Me?" I whispered back. "Of course not."

I was. We both knew it. It didn't seem to matter a bit. 

The rest of the summer had gone wonderfully. After I'd told the Potters and my friends how the beginning of my summer had gone, they had all treated me somewhat differently. Mrs. Potter was still being wonderfully motherly, but seemed to have a sort of instinct about when to leave off, usually when my eyes started to burn a bit and I found myself trying very hard not to wish that _my_ mother were anything like her. Mr. Potter acted mostly the same, but he seemed to be honestly interested in my opinions on things, and quizzed me at length about precisely what charms I'd put on my lovely motorcycle, which I'd given up calling the White Dog and was now being referred to by all simply as 'Sirius's motorbike'. James too was acting as though he greatly respected my opinions now, though I wasn't entirely sure why. Peter was positively hero-worshipping me, clearly in awe of the way I'd defied my family. This was the attention I was most uncomfortable with; it was the sort of thing that had encouraged every reckless thing I'd ever done, so I was trying to be wary of it. 

In fact, Remus was the only one who wasn't really acting differently around me; it occurred to me that perhaps the way he acted didn't _need_ to change, because he'd always understood or comforted or joked at exactly the right time. Of course, before this we'd never gone around stealing kisses when we bumped into each other in the hall, or groped each other under the table during dinner while doing our best to remain straight-faced, but what we were doing had absolutely no effect on the way Remus behaved, unless it perhaps made him smile a bit more.

So here we were on the train to Hogwarts, with Peter absently shuffling the Exploding Snap deck as he listened to James going on about what he could possibly do on a date to make Lily Evans really like him, and Remus and I sitting there pressed up against each other grinning at one another from behind Remus's book, and once again I felt fiercely happy to be just _here_ just _now_, because for just this one moment I could let everything be perfect.

~*~

Perfection doesn't last. Within our first week back at Hogwarts, along with our great load of homework came a great load of whispers and rumors and awful fears, because it suddenly seemed to be common knowledge that there was a madman gaining followers, a madman whose name I caught to be Voldemort before everyone began to be afraid to say it, like the name was a deadly curse, and the kids started to say simply You-Know-Who, because everyone did know who, and didn't want to. Every time I heard the whispered phrase of You-Know-Who, my insides went cold and I'd remember my father's shining face as he explained about the Dark Lord, and how it was only a title, a formality.

A bloody formality that was getting people killed.

Fear is catching. Peter's eyes seemed to grow wider by the day; James's pranks, and mine, took on a slightly wilder edge, and a part of my mind remembered the desperation of last year, the need to keep the party in my head going at any cost, but somehow this was different. Even stolen minutes with Remus were different, because I'd be having a good time and suddenly realize that if Lord Voldemort ever took it into his head to have Remus killed, I'd lose this wonderful boy – and then, with this in mind, even kissing Remus would become a sort of act of desperation.

Remus caught on, of course. One day in October, while James was at Quidditch practice and Peter in the library catching up on homework, Remus and I were in our dorm, cuddling. We were lying in the window seat, Remus with his back against the stone window frame and me sort of sprawled out in front of him with my head in his lap. I had my eyes closed, trying to enjoy the moment, but I felt Remus's eyes on me, as though they were trying to bore their way into my forehead. I blinked my eyes open and looked up at Remus, whose face was upside-down and looking rather cross. 

"Yes?"

"You're trying too hard," Remus told me, running a hand through my hair.

"What d'you mean?"

"To enjoy yourself," Remus explained. "Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps if you concentrate too much on having fun, it ceases to be any fun at all?"

"Er, no, I don't think that's occurred to me," I said, but I knew what he was getting at. "Don't worry about it, Moony."

Remus chuckled, an ironic little chuckle with almost no mirth in it. "So I'm to believe you want me to stop concerning myself with you. Not a chance, Sirius. You're not getting rid of me unless you run away."

_Again_.

But Remus didn't say that, because Remus always manages to be tactful. Even then I couldn't get angry with him, because I knew somehow he understood. I only shrugged, as best I could while lying on my back. "I suppose so. It's just … I feel so bloody useless. What on earth am I doing, hanging around in school?"

"Getting an education?" Remus suggested sardonically, but the line of annoyance had disappeared from his forehead. "Look," he said softly, "if you're feeling all that useless, go talk to Professor Dumbledore. I'm sure he'll have something for you to do."

"All right," I conceded. I wasn't entirely sure; after last year, in the episode with Snape and the Willow, Dumbledore seemed to regard me as a potential for real hazard. Still, Remus seemed to think most highly of the man, and going to the headmaster was a fairly good suggestion, so off I went.

I took the map with me, so just outside Dumbledore's office it told me the year's new password ("peppermint humbugs"). At the top of the moving spiral staircase I almost thought better of it and went back down, but instead I knocked on the headmaster's door.

"Come in," Dumbledore's voice called mildly.

I opened the door and went in. Dumbledore's office looked much as it always had; lots of whirring silver contraptions and other stranger things James and I have been itching to get our hands on for years. Some of the old headmasters' and mistresses' portraits waved me in cheerful familiarity – I spotted dear Phineas Nigellus … he gave me a surprised and almost relieved look, then made a face at me and stalked off out of his frame. I turned to face Dumbledore.

The headmaster didn't look even remotely surprised to see me, but he gave me a smile and said, "Good afternoon. Do sit down," so I felt somewhat less nervous.

"Thanks, sir." I sat in a large chair across the desk from Dumbledore, took a deep breath, and got straight to the point. "I'm feeling useless at Hogwarts, after hearing all the rumors about this Lord Voldemort – You-Know-Who, as everyone seems to be calling him. Are any of the rumors true, sir?"

"A great deal of them," said Dumbledore heavily, and looked at me intently with that bright blue gaze of his.

"Ah." I fidgeted a bit in the chair. "So … is there anything we can do? Because I feel like someone should be doing something, and it may as well be me –"

"Indeed," Dumbledore said, looking at me more intently than ever. "In fact, Sirius, I'm glad you came to me. Your friend James Potter, incidentally, came to me earlier today, with much the same sentiments. And I shall now tell you what I told him.

"Lord Voldemort is indeed a threat. I know something of him, having taught him myself when he went to Hogwarts. I know that he has a deep and abiding hate of everyone whose blood he does not deem 'pure' enough, though he himself is only a 'half-blood' by his own standards. If given the encouragement or means, he could very well attempt to 'cleanse' the wizarding world of all those whom he deems unworthy to inhabit it.

"This is why it is entirely critical he be counteracted now. I am in fact looking for people with two very important strengths – belief in the matter of Lord Voldemort, and a willingness to counter him."

"Anyone who believes you and wants to do something?" I broke in eagerly.

Dumbledore gave me a grave look and I subsided. "Yes," he said quietly. "Anyone at all, for we will need all the help we can possibly receive. So far this order of people remains quite small, but I have hope in the willingness of youth, and we may yet have an Order of the Phoenix."

"Order of the Phoenix," I repeated. "That's what it's called?"

"Indeed." Dumbledore finally granted me a smile. "And you are interested?"

"Very," I said fervently.

Dumbledore's mustache twitched in amusement. "Your friend Mr. Potter said much the same thing, and more besides. Will you echo him in his nomination of Messers Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin as additional individuals interested in joining the Order?"

"I'd think so," I said, "though you should probably ask them yourself, sir."

"Perhaps," Dumbledore said, standing, and I stood too, "it would be best if yourself and Mr. Potter told them of this idea, and let them come to me if they are interested."

"Yes, sir." I grinned at Dumbledore. "I'll do whatever I can. Thank you."

"Thank _you_," said Dumbledore, and let me out of his office.

~*~

"So?"

"Of course," James said, frowning. "Is there any question?"

We were sitting in a circle on the floor in our dorm room, a candle flickering and casting light around the circle. Peter's eyes still looked almost too wide in the candlelight.

"Of course there's a question," Remus said, frowning a bit in return. "Which is why Dumbledore is _asking_ us, instead of outright recruiting." His frown dissipated. "Of course, it's not a question for _you_, James. Or for Sirius." He paused and stared at the flickering candle flame. "I'm in too," he said finally.

"Me three," Peter said quickly, and grinned sheepishly when we looked at him.

"You sure, Wormtail?" I asked him seriously. "This isn't games anymore. This is really important."

Peter nodded. "I know. That's why I'm in."

"Excellent," I said, and then, fervently, "Thank you."

We were silent for a moment. Then, "A lot to happen in one summer," James said thoughtfully. "I've never really thought it was possible to say, 'ah, look, that's how I acted last May. I was a kid then. And then that's how I'm acting now, in October, and I'm not a kid anymore'. Is that allowed to happen? Is it strictly legal to just suddenly _become_ an adult?"

"I wasn't aware there _was_ another way," Remus said, looking amused.

"Yes, but –" James raked a hand through his hair. "That date with Lily, for example. I never seriously thought she _would_ go out with me. And I never even _considered_ that she'd be so intelligent, or have a great sense of humor, or even bother liking _me_."

"Ah," I said, grinning. "So our dear Miss Evans has finally been wooed?"

"Yeah," James said, grinning back. "And damn hard it was, too." He gazed dreamily into the distance. "Bloody worth it, though."

Remus and I exchanged an amused look.

"Speaking of which," James said, snapping back into the moment, "if you won't beat me up for this, I'm just wondering why the two of you were doing rather obscene things to each other under the table at breakfast this morning."

Peter squeaked, and I felt my face flame. Remus looked completely unruffled. "Now, that's a rather unfair exaggeration."

"Oh?" said James, looking from me to Remus and back again.

"It was just a bit of friendly groping," Remus said mildly. "If you want to see anything really interesting you're going to have to skip Quidditch practice."

The grin froze on James' face. Peter was looking absolutely shocked. I glanced at Remus, and he gave me a very innocent look, his eyes sparkling. I couldn't help it. I gave a snort of laughter.

And the next second, James was howling with laughs of his own, tears running down his cheeks. Peter giggled a bit. I covered my mouth with my hands, because I knew I'd be sniggering loudly if I let myself. And Remus just sat in the light of the candle, and watched us mildly.

"Okay," James gasped, pulling his glasses off and wiping his streaming eyes with the sleeve of his robe. "I thoroughly deserved that." Settling his glasses back on his nose, he said in a business-like voice, "But don't you _dare_ tell me what the two of you get up to. I have absolutely no interest. How would you feel if I started telling you things about Lily?"

"Well, first, you haven't been seeing her long enough for there to be anything interesting _to_ tell," I said, "Second, you completely ruined the fun of it … If you forbid us to tell you things, we'll never be able to threaten to tell you. And third, just now you have completely proven yourself wrong in that earlier comment about being a reasonable adult."

James sobered. "Well no, I did mean that."

I stopped grinning too. "I know."

"So," Remus said quietly, "faces forward, then. One last hurrah this year, and then we'll go out and _really_ get things done."

"Right," we said.

I looked around at them all in the candlelight, my three very best friends in the world. Remus was looking the same as always, mild and cheerful and slightly tired. James' face was set. And Peter was holding his head high, looking almost comically solemn. I felt a funny jolt in my stomach, half pity and half envy, seeing him like that. He'd had nothing to atone, and nothing to promise, and no horrible thing to look back on to remind him of it. Peter was only sitting here with us because he was our friend. 

I supposed that had to be enough, that we were friends.

Then I caught Remus's eye, and he gave me a faint rueful happy grin.

And, I decided, it _was_ enough.


End file.
